Yet Another 50% Efficiency Day

This is my 6th all grain and I haven’t come here to complain yet but I’m really getting tired of getting 50% efficiency. I’m just going to walk you through everything and If someone sees some obvious thing I’m doing wrong PLEASE let me know. I try to follow Bobby M's Instructions (#2) from this post

I have a 10 gallon Rubbermaid MashTun with a stainless steel braided loop.

Here is the Recipe I used.

8 lbs Rauch Malt
3 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Munich
1 lb 40L Crystal
1 lb 80L Crystal
¾ lb Chocolate
.5 lb Black Malt.

First I added 4.75 Gallons of 175 degree Water and Mash started at 157, ended at 154

vorlaufed and drained.
Then added 2.75 gallons of 185 degree water, and stirred let sit for 5 mins.. first sparge was at 164 degrees, vorlaufed and drained

Then added 2.75 gallons of 185 degree water and stirred let sit for 5 mins again. 2nd sparge was 172 degrees, vorlaufed and drained.

Sparge PH was around 5


Boiled for 1 hour.. got 5 gallons to the fermenter..

OG was 1.48
Should be around 1.62


Any help? It seems like my efficiency is actually going down since I started. My first 2 were about 70% efficiency. The one before today was an Imperial Stout so I attributed the low OG to the 23lbs of grain..target OG was 1.124 and I hit 1.072.
but this one is not a big beer and Its still way way too low..

Thanks
Mike

Do you crush your own grain? After I bought my malt mill, my efficiency went up alot.

What does your crush look like?

What is your water chemistry?

Did you take a mash gravity reading? This will tell you what your conversion eff. is.

Are your thermometers accurate?

Everything else looked good to me.

+1 on the crush if you have never done better than 50% and your crush is always done the same way from the same source.

EDIT : Pol beat me to a lot of this.....(i know from experiecne, I have lots of folks on here trying to help with my efficiency struggles)

+1 on crush.

Also, it is completely imperative that

1) your volume measurements are 100% accurate (not relying on Ale Pail marks, I hope)

2) your gravity readings are accurate (hyrdo samples chilled to correct temp?, refracto calibrated?)

3) your thermometers are accurate (when's the last time they were checked).

Check out Kai's spreadsheets on braukaier and maybe you can isolate where your problem is: mash, lauter, etc...

I order my stuff online and get it Pre-crushed. I did start out with a different company but isnt 50% still a little low? The grains look cracked.. but basicly whole looking, not broken in half or anything. I wonder if thats the problem....

maltymike said:

I order my stuff online and get it Pre-crushed. I did start out with a different company but isnt 50% still a little low? The grains look cracked.. but basicly whole looking, not broken in half or anything. I wonder if thats the problem....

Click to expand...

Just because you buy it crushed, doesnt mean it is a good crush. Here is a good crush.



Here are the HUSKS


Here are the KERNELS

maltymike said:

I order my stuff online and get it Pre-crushed. I did start out with a different company but isnt 50% still a little low? The grains look cracked.. but basicly whole looking, not broken in half or anything. I wonder if thats the problem....

Click to expand...

I've never seen good pre-crushed grain. Nothing even close in fact. I would definitely start there. If you don't want to shell out for a malt mill of some sort, get a corona mill. They're cheap and work well.

maltymike said:

I order my stuff online and get it Pre-crushed. I did start out with a different company but isnt 50% still a little low? The grains look cracked.. but basicly whole looking, not broken in half or anything. I wonder if thats the problem....

Click to expand...

You found your problem...

Who's milling that grain? Did you happen to take a picture of the grain? I know it's a long shot but that's always the first place to start troubleshooting.

Edit.. nevermind. I should have known not to hit "post" 15 minutes later.

maltymike said:

I order my stuff online and get it Pre-crushed. I did start out with a different company but isnt 50% still a little low? The grains look cracked.. but basicly whole looking, not broken in half or anything. I wonder if thats the problem....

Click to expand...

Who (which online company) crushed the grain, I am sure others would benefit from your experience.

A poor crush may be partially to blame, but there are plenty of other possibilities.
Going back to your first post, you say "First I added 4.75 Gallons of 175 degree Water and Mash started at 157, ended at 154"
Did you stir?
Did you stir really well?
When you stirred until you thought it was stirred well enough, did you stir some more?

You mentioned stirring for the sparge, but not with the dough in.

Just a thought.

-a.

z987k said:

I've never seen good pre-crushed grain. Nothing even close in fact. I would definitely start there. If you don't want to shell out for a malt mill of some sort, get a corona mill. They're cheap and work well.

Click to expand...

I have....Brewmasters Warehouse! :cross:

Definitely seems like a crush problem. I had the same thing happen to me. I bought grain at my LHBS had it crushed and got terrible efficiency. Finally I ordered crushed grain online and achieved my target efficiency. I then got a mill and have never had a problem since.

I was using pre crushed from austin homebrew and my local homebrew supply store and getting about 65-70% eff. This past batch I tried Brewmaster's warehouse for the first time and I shot up to 80% eff. using the same setup. My Scottish Heavy 70/- instantly became a Scottish Export 80/-! I'm not sure if I should adjust my procedure if I keep ordering from BMW.

Watch out for those dough balls, they will eat your efficiency up. I really do think however that alot of efficiency loss can be attributed to the crush. I stopped using my LHBS for that very reason. They are great guys, but when I told him that my I was constantly missing my gravity by at least a few points he told me that my system just wasn't set up well enough to deal with their crush.

Easy experiment, ordered from brewmasters warehouse, and wouldn't you believe I hit my numbers. Sorry this is turning into a bit of plug but those guys are really top notch.

Check the crush and also really take your time sparging and vorlaufing, that has helped me immensly.

I just calibrated my thermometer earlier in the brew day, using ice water and boiling water.. so I dont think thats the problem.

I did stir alot when I was doughing in and made sure there was no clumps and then stirred some more.. to be honest.. The temp was actually a little too high.. so i had to stir in some ice cubes to get it down to temp..

I feel bad posting the name of the company because I dont want to lose buisness for them but its from Midwest Supply. Anyone have any experience with them?

I guess my best bet is to try a different online shop or think about investing in a grain mill..

my grains looked nothing like those pictures.. They really look like whole grains, just slightly cracked.. The darker roasted/ chocolate malts are broken up to look more like your pictures..

I hope its something that simple... I guess I will find out in a month or so, the next time I brew.. I really don't mind missing gravity by a little, but when its so drastic it messes up the flavor profile of the beer. Im worried this beer is going to be far to bitter for what I had intended..

Thanks so much everyone.
Malty Mike

For what it is worth, I used to (2 years ago) buy from Midwest and achieved 70% with thier crush. I crush my own now and I am dead on at 83% each time without doing anything fancy.

That said, the crush you describe would reduce your eff. by 20% easily. Fix the crush, and go from there. I suggest looking up how to determine your conversion efficiency, this way when you brew again you can calculate how well you are converting sugars. Once you do this you can determine if there are any deficiencies in the mash or in the lauter... if there are any at all!

You might have some Channeling in your mash tun. Have you tried an alternate way of collecting the wort other than a braided hose?

DaanMuller said:

You might have some Channeling in your mash tun. Have you tried an alternate way of collecting the wort other than a braided hose?

Click to expand...

The issue of channeling is null with batch sparging... This is only a concern when fly sparging, which is why braids are not good for fly sparging, but perfectly fine with batch.

Hard to have channeling when you stir the water into the grains, then drain completely... and repeat. Here is a good explaination of sparging methods, pros, cons... general info.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/07/04/sparging-methods/

Get a grain mill of some sort. I use the corona mill and get 75% every time, which is exactly where I want it to be. They're cheap on ebay and http://www.google.com/products?hl=e...num=0&q=corona+mill&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

Also check out kaiser's stuff on batch sparge efficiency. http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Batch_Sparging_Analysis

AZ_IPA said:

EDIT : Pol beat me to a lot of this.....(i know from experiecne, I have lots of folks on here trying to help with my efficiency struggles)

+1 on crush.

Also, it is completely imperative that

1) your volume measurements are 100% accurate (not relying on Ale Pail marks, I hope)

2) your gravity readings are accurate (hyrdo samples chilled to correct temp?, refracto calibrated?)

3) your thermometers are accurate (when's the last time they were checked).

Check out Kai's spreadsheets on braukaier and maybe you can isolate where your problem is: mash, lauter, etc...

Click to expand...

These tips have all helped me to hone in on better and more consistent efficiency. Hey at least you have consistency!

Not to hijack this this thread but....I missed my OG the other day. I got the grains crushed from AHS about 3-4 weeks ago. Would the fact that the grains are not freshly crushed have any effect on my efficiency.Thanks.

My crushed grains from AHS have never looked like that. My efficiency is fine, but then again I collect close to 7.5 gallons for a 5.5 batch and boil for 90 min. Now you've got me worried about getting my grains crushed by online places.

Before I got my barley crusher I used to order my grain pre-crushed from northern brewer. In the note on my order I'd request that they crush it twice and that boosted my efficiency nicely with no sparge issues.